


Becoming

by HotDogDeleted



Series: SoCali Criminalis [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, F/M, San Bernardino hasn’t had a good time, but she’s on the road to recovery, everyone in this fandom has ocs, in this fandom we Love And Respect Ocs., listen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-02
Updated: 2018-05-02
Packaged: 2019-05-01 07:58:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14515899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HotDogDeleted/pseuds/HotDogDeleted
Summary: She has always fallen in love too fast, too easy.





	Becoming

**Author's Note:**

> AJSJDJDNS here’s a backstory for one of my OCs. Honestly the Hotel artemis discord is oc heaven and I suggest u guys come up with ur own because it’s FUN. And since the movie isn’t even out yet it’s more original story than fanfic at this point lmao.

**Tw for descriptions of a sexual assault**

 

Luce has always had a habit of falling in love too fast, too easy. 

 

The first time was early. 8th grade. The new girl in her class, Ricky, told her that she liked boys and girls. Luce didn’t even know this was an option. It completely changed the game. She spent the school year pining after Ricky, and after a summer of hot days and hotter nights-where she often couldn’t sleep, time moving slow and thick like it had been jellied-Luce finally confessed her feelings to her friend. 

Ricky was her first kiss. 

She moved to Massachusetts the day before 9th grade began. 

 

Her junior year of high school, Luce fell hard for the boy in the glasses who sat across from her in 0 period. Watched him dreamily every morning. Shyly admired his long limbs and handsomely crooked features. 

He asked her to prom. 

A year later she was lying on his bed, her nerves singing wildly as he kissed her. 

She spends every friday lunch period at his house, in his bed her senior year. 

They graduate high school and she spends one last afternoon in his bed. He goes to the local community college and she moves upstate to begin her own university life. 

 

Freshman year is boring and uneventful. She turns 19 and hums happy birthday to herself. 

 

By sophomore year she has a new group of friends. Giggly girls from her psych class, who invite her to parties every weekend. They teach her how to find heels that really fit. How to get the best smoky eye. 

 

——- **tw———-**

In junior year she turns 21 and has her first drink and it’s bitter and it hurts but she smiles and swallows and joins her friends on the dance floor. She continues to make progress in her classes. She joins clubs. She still gets invited to parties every weekend and now sometimes she even goes. The week before finals her giggly friends invite her to a “stress relief” party at some grad student’s house. It feels like half the university is there, attempting to distract themselves from their upcoming exams. There is a lot of alcohol. 

Luce knows she’s being eyed by the cute boy in the kitchen, so she lets herself get pulled to the dance floor. She lets loose a little. He brings her a drink. She accepts it.

She lets her guard down, she wants to have fun. After all, she thinks, she deserves it. She’s studied harder than any of her classmates, she’s sure of it. 

She lets the cute boy get her another drink. He gets her another one after that. 

Soon her eyes are heavy and she’s not quite as steady on her feet as before. Her heels feel less like battle armor and more like bear traps. The cute boy seems to notice her distress, and she lets him lead her to a room and lie her down on the bed. He tells her he’ll wake her up when her friends are leaving. She dozes off. 

…

….

Her head feels thick, and her brain seems to pulse painfully in protest as she slowly regains consciousness. Having passed the point of simply being tipsy long ago, she’s not quite aware of what’s happening. She’s turned over roughly and she makes a slight noise in protest. Then she hears the cute boy swear. He says something to…

There are other people in the room.

 

With a choking sense of dread she realizes her friends have long since left this party. 

She begins to panic. She struggles. She’s pinned down. She’s not strong enough to break their grips. She’s not strong enough to fight back. She’s aware of the fact that her skirt is being pushed out of the way and she’s being passed around and there are too many of them and the press of bodies is nauseating and it  _ hurts _ and she’s dizzy with fear and she doesn’t even realize she’s screaming until one of them grabs her by the throat. 

 

And now she can’t breathe. 

 

She thrashes and wails and all she can do is make a garbled broken noise as they continue doing what they’re doing. 

She’s lifted roughly by her hair and it hurts. She’s dropped to her knees in front of the cute boy from earlier and she’s not an idiot and she knows what is about to happen so she bites his thigh hard enough to draw blood and the last thing she hears is his angry yell and his knee jutting up towards her face and there’s a sick crunching sound that she’s numbly aware of as her nose breaking, and then she loses consciousness.

 

— **tw——-**

 

When she gets back to her dorm she ignores her roommate’s concerned questions, she knows what a broken nose looks like. She showers with the water set to the hottest she can get it. 

She scrubs until she bleeds. And then she scrubs some more. And then her legs are shaking so bad that she just sits down in the tiny dorm shower and stares at the wall until the water gets so cold she’s trembling again. 

 

—

She vomits until there’s nothing left. Until she feels emptier than she’s ever felt before. Like her insides have been scooped out and now she’s just a hollowed out prop. She lets the pain center her. 

—-

 

She doesn’t leave her room for a week. Not even to get food. She gets water from the tap. 

 

Sometimes her roommate brings back leftovers from the dining hall, but even so she barely eat. Whatever she does eat winds up getting thrown up into the toilet more often than not. She begins looking forward to the hunger pangs because they give her something to focus on. 

 

She doesn’t speak. To anyone. She ignores calls and doesn’t read texts. She misses all of her final exams. She misses the exam make-up dates. She fails her classes and she deletes the follow-up emails her professors send. 

—-

She goes home. 

 

Only, since grandmother died the summer after Luce’s high school graduation, there really isn’t a home to go to. 

So she couch hops for a while until finally landing a job doing what she knows she’s good at: driving. 

 

—-

It’s slow to get there, but her life has rhythm again. She does her job. She pays her rent. She starts going to the gym, she wants to be strong. She needs to be stronger because she’s weak and frail and she needs to be better. 

 

She cuts her hair. Cuts it all off, pretty much. She likes it short, cropped close to her head. It’s out of reach, no longer a liability. Plus, she thinks, it makes her look handsome. 

She’s eating three meals again most days of the week now. 

 

She turns 25 and she expands her driving service. She works longer nights, and sure her new clients are, well, Criminals. And maybe she’s just a glorified getaway driver but it pays well and they’re respectful and she doesn’t have to ask any questions, doesn’t have to get to know anyone, doesn’t have to let anyone get to know her. She’s not Luce anymore. She’s San Bernardino. And that’s fine by her. 

 

San Bernardino is better. She’s stronger. Wherever Luce was soft and round, San Bernardino is hardened and sharp. All of the skirts in Luce’s wardrobe are thrown out in exchange for San Bernardino’s trousers and faded jeans. Luce’s high heels and makeup are given away to friends and quickly replaced with San Bernardino’s combat boots and pocket knives. 

 

She’s tougher and less trusting, but she doesn’t let herself get meaner. 

 

She spends her Friday nights driving dizzy, drunk giggling girls home for free. Just making sure they get back safe. 

——

She meets a woman who is tall and solid. A monument. With thick braided hair so black it’s almost blue, and curved hips, and intense eyes that make San Bernardino’s breath hitch. A woman who gets back into her car smelling like a forest fire and San Bernardino hopes they never find an extinguisher. 

——

She smiles again. She laughs again. She’s determined to be  _ happy.  _

 

She had a habit of falling in love with other people too fast, too easy. This time, even though it’s slow, and it’s the most difficult thing she’s ever done, she learns to love herself. 

 


End file.
